The Monsters Inside
by IronSparrow99
Summary: Everyone has a 'worst nightmare' - a fear that only they know about, hidden in the deep, dark recesses of their soul to never see the light of day. Ever. So what happens when those fears are forcibly dragged out of you, without your consent or anyone else's? Well, we're about to find out.
1. Chapter 1

"All I'm saying is that Iron Man would totally win in a knock-down, drag-out fight with Batman," I explain as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"And you're biased," Bucky argues from my left. " _Batman_ has a mansion, a butler, and a secret suit."

"I have like, five mansions, an artificially intelligent butler that is sassier than Alfred will ever be, and remind me to show you sublevel five sometime," Dad counters. "Give it up, Barnes, red and gold beats black any day."

Bucky puts on a pout that makes everyone laugh, and I take the opportunity to flick him in the ear.

We were all reasonably happy – spring was in the air, birds were chirping, no one had wreaked havoc in a week or so, and it was Team Movie Night (capitalization necessary) and we had just watched the new Batman v. Superman movie.

So, naturally, we were discussing who would win if our merry band of superheroes went up against those parallel to us in the DC Comic universe.

"Steve versus Superman?" Bruce offers.

"Hm," I hum thoughtfully. "That's a tough one. I mean, Superman can _fly_. Cap can't. No offense, Steve."

"None taken," the blonde shakes his head amiably. "I know my limits."

Bucky, however, isn't giving up that easily. "Kent's weakness is a rock," he argues. "A _rock_. Which, despite having a reputation for being incredibly rare, is mysteriously obtained by every person ever."

"A little defensive, are we?" I tease, looking past Bucky to Steve's blush. "Aw, that's cute."

"Shut up," Bucky huffs, rolling his eyes and shoving me in the shoulder. "Green Arrow versus Hawkeye."

"Do you really think I'll give you an unbiased answer on that?" I laugh, dancing out of arm's reach and ducking behind Clint. "Tasha versus Catwoman?"

"The Lady Natasha would best this Lady of Cats," Thor declares loudly, drawing strange looks from other pedestrians.

"Lower it down a bit, Fabio," Dad requests, patting his shoulder. "But he's got a point," he continues, addressing Natasha, "you'd have her in the ground before she could even touch that horribly impractical whip of hers."

I disguise my snigger as a cough – that was the most forward compliment I'd ever heard him give to anyone other than me – as Natasha just coolly smiles, giving nothing away. "Thanks, Tony. Bucky, Taylor versus Kate Kane?"

Bucky tilts his head at her. "Who?"

"Batgirl. A sidekick to Batman."

"I'm not a sidekick!" I protest indignantly.

"Sure you're not," Clint says, giving my head a very patronizing pat before I swat him off.

"I don't know anything about Batgirl," Bucky points out. "So Taylor."

"I love your reasons," I scoff. "You have so much faith in me."

"You're welcome," he quips.

I laugh, poking his side. "Okay, okay – Bucky versus…who'd he fight?"

"Red Hood," Natasha offers, and I raise an eyebrow. She shrugs. "In the oldest comics he's a villain that later becomes a sidekick-type person."

"Okay, good enough," I nod, not giving Bucky himself any say in the matter. "How would that go?"

She shrugs again, giving me a 'don't look at _me_ ' expression.

"I bet he'd get the upper hand a lot," Steve quips, causing the group to burst into laughter.

"Upper hand," I chuckle. "Ha, ha." I roll my eyes, stopping as a store on the boulevard we were walking catches my eye. "Oh, coffee. Can we?"

"Should we?" Steve asks. "It's kind of late."

Dad and I give almost identical snorts – did he really think that argument worked on us?

"They have brownies," Bucky adds, tipping his head towards the advertisements in the shop window. "C'mon, Steve. _Brownies._ "

Steve, of course, takes one look at Bucky's puppy-dog eyes before caving. "Fine," he sighs, digging around in his jacket pockets for a moment before producing a small notebook – always Mr. Old Fashioned, that one. "Write your orders down here."

After the notebook is passed around and eight orders are scribbled down, I amble into the shop with Bruce following in order to act as a second pair of hands.

A bell above the door tinkles as we enter the small shop, and the barista – a young girl with slightly brown skin and wide brown eyes – looks up at the noise and smiles. "Hello and welcome to Cathy's Coffee & Confections, what can I get you this evening?"

Smothering a laugh at the name – who was Cathy and why did she love alliteration so much? – I approach the counter, noting the complete lack of other patrons but passing it off as it being nearly nine at night in a small coffee shop on a Friday night.

"I'll take a small black coffee with two sugars and a cream, one medium cappuccino, one caramel Frappuccino, easy on the drizzle; one dark chocolate brownie, one large black coffee with two creams, one large black coffee, no cream or sugar; one caramel brownie, one small hot chocolate with extra whipped cream, a chocolate chip cookie, and…"

"One green tea, please," Bruce adds from behind me.

"Is that all?" I nod, and the barista taps something on the register before nodding. "That'll just be a minute."

Once she's off in the back, hopefully making our coffee, Bruce and I find seats at one of the bistro-style tables in the shop.

Without warning, an odd feeling washes over me, churning my stomach and setting the hairs on the back of my neck on edge. Never one to ignore instinct, I immediately straighten up, my eyes scanning the shop for anything that could be causing the unease.

"What is it?" I turn to see Bruce watching me curiously. "You perked up suddenly."

"Ever get the feeling you're being watched?" I ask, shifting anxiously in my seat.

The physicist shrugs. "There are probably CCTV cameras all over – you know how people are nowadays. Calm down, you're being paranoid."

"You're probably right," I sigh, forcing my nerves to settle and dismissing the churning in my gut as too much popcorn at the movie theater.

My worries are forgotten as the barista brings back our two cup carriers and two brownies, and the anxiety is all but forgotten as we exit the shop and rejoin the group loitering outside.

I help pass the drinks and treats to the appropriate people, accepting my own cup and brownie before we continue our walk down the sidewalk.

I take a sip of my coffee, pleased that they got my order right. You wouldn't believe how many shops got that wrong. I mean, it was a simple thing-

The second sip makes me falter and stare at my cup in confusion. The second sip had been incredibly bitter, almost sour, and I purse my lips against the taste. I look around at the rest of the team, slightly pleased to see looks of confusion and disgust on their faces. Good, so I wasn't the only one whose coffee was suddenly bitter and almost chalky, tasting a bit like one of the big pills I had to-

 _Pills._ My brain catches, almost instantaneously connecting _pills_ to _medicine_ to _drugs._

 _Drugs,_ my brain screams, only it's a bit too late because my head is swimming, my eyes can't focus, and my body feels like it's made of jelly. The sidewalk rushes up to meet me, and I'm just barely able to hear tires screech from somewhere nearby before it all begins to fade.

I idly wonder if the coffee was any good just before I'm dragged into the deep, dark abyss and know nothing more.


	2. Chapter 2

_I hate kidnappings_ , was my first conscious thought, sometime later. _And it's not for the normal reasons, either – it's not the actual kidnapping part that gets me. No, I'm actually quite used to that, sadly – yes, hello, daughter of a billionaire and a superhero here. No, what I despise is that you get to wake up in a musty, moldy cell somewhere, usually with a god-awful headache and with various amounts of clothing._

"Mmmmgrahhhmf," I moan, cutting off my own train of thought before it became a ramble and made m already painful headache worse.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," a familiar voice says from nearby. "Can you open your eyes for me?"

"Do I have to?" I groan. "Head hurts."

"Yes, I know. I've been there," the voice agrees. "I need to check for a concussion though."

I give a sigh before unclenching my eyes and letting them open, revealing Bruce leaning over me and looking at me intently.

"Nope, you're good," he announces after another moment. "Think you can sit up?"

I consider this for a moment before nodding and letting him pull me up and prop me up against the left wall. A rustling sound catches my attention, and I look down to see the clothes I had been wearing before I blacked out had been replaced by a rough orange jumpsuit that was really quite itchy.

"Um," I run my tongue over my lips. "Stupid question, but did any of you happen to change me?"

"Nope." I glance over at Clint, who was a few feet away and staring back at me. "They must've done it while we were still out, because Nat and I were wearing them when we woke up, as was everyone else, and we were the first awake," he explains, giving me a small smile. "Sorry, love."

"It's alright," I wave a hand absently. "That's the least of our problems." I take a look around at our cell, finding it to be pretty standard laboratory fare – maybe ten feet by fifteen feet, with three clean, shiny white walls, the wall at the front being made of glass that I doubted even Thor could break. There were no windows, and the only door looked like it was made of more of the glass that was used for the wall.

On the downside, the rusty shackles on the wall were concerning. Upside, though; this cell had a bench that ran the length of the back wall and was currently being occupied by my dad, Natasha, and a concussed Steve, who had Bucky hovering nearby like a gigantic hummingbird.

"Any clue on who took us?" I ask the room at large.

"It had to be someone connected to the coffee shop in order to drug our drinks," Natasha offers, "but other than that, no."

I breath out slowly before getting up and moving to sit next to Clint, leaning against him. No showy affection, no, (this wasn't the time or place to start making out in a corner) but the fact that he was there, alive and majorly unharmed, was a major relief.

"So what now?" Bucky asks, still hovering by Steve's side. "We need a plan."

"We cannot do much at this moment," Thor rumbles, sounding oddly wise. "We do not know our captor's intentions, and as such, we cannot begin to formulate a plan."

When it came down to either listening to Thor or running around like a headless chicken, I was always gonna listen to the guy with thousands of years of battle and court training.

"He's right," I admit. "We don't know who has us or why we're here yet, and if we were to charge out now – which we can't – we would be acting preemptively."

Everyone in our little cell automatically looks towards Dad – with Steve still recovering from a concussion, he was the _de facto_ leader in the room. "Right. We need to wait until we know what's going on, and then we begin making plans."

I had a feeling that second part was going to be fun – the first part, on the other hand…

* * *

The first contact we had with people outside of the cell came a few hours later, when Steve was mostly on the mend, being able to sit up and open his eyes, as well as be re-briefed on the situation we were in.

Footsteps echo outside the cell, and we all automatically tense. We were all weaponless, yeah, but six of us were highly trained in hand-to-hand combat.

The person that appears through the glass doesn't quite _look_ like your average bad guy, but appearances could be deceiving.

He was a handsome man, maybe six feet tall, give or take a few inches, with slicked back blonde hair (and what was it with villains slicking their hair back? Was there a Super-Evil Hair Care line that I was missing?) and deep blue eyes, a few shades darker than my own. He was wearing a pair of white jeans, a pair of loafers, and a white blazer unbuttoned over a navy blue button down shirt. All in all, he looked more like a guy I'd encounter in a board room, not after he'd kidnapped me for whatever reason.

The two very-obviously-guards that looked slightly like beekeepers flanking him ruined the image a bit.

"Who are you?" Steve asks eventually, with just a hint of accusation to his voice but the words not giving much else away.

"Me?" the man asks. "You can call me the Mandarin."

There's a sharp intake of breath to right – I glance at my dad briefly, but the man – the Mandarin – pays him no mind.

"Why are we here?" Steve asks again.

"Why are you here?" the Mandarin parrots. "Oh, only for a small matter I like to call _revenge_."

Nobody really reacts to this – revenge was really high up there on the list titled _Reasons to Kidnap an Avenger._ The only question now was revenge on whom?

"Who do you want revenge on?" Natasha asks casually, probably having the same thoughts as I was at the moment.

"That is unimportant," the man snaps before regaining his cool composure. "What is important is that you're all here now, so the fun can begin." Behind him, eight more Beekeeper People materialized seemingly out of thin air.

(And while that might seem impossible, Ilive with James Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, and Clint Barton. It isn't that implausible.)

"Gentlemen, ladies," the man nods. "I will see you again." He then turns neatly on his heel and walks out of the room, leaving us alone with ten Beekeeper People that were quickly moving towards us.

* * *

By my count, it took about ten minutes for us to be marched from our cell to where we were now, which was a circular hallway with hard steel behind us and crystal-clear glass in front of us, looking out on a circular inner ring that was about forty feet in diameter, with hard cement floors and what looks like an operating table opposite us, titled at a forty-five-degree angle with restraints for the wrists and ankles, as well as some nasty look machinery where your head would go.

I swallow around the sudden lump in my throat. Restraints were now in the game. Because _that_ was _always_ a _wonderful_ sign.

"Avengers," a voice suddenly booms over unseen speakers, causing me to startle. "Welcome your worst nightmare – and I do mean that quite literally."

The Mandarin laughs, and I idly wonder why we always got the crazy ones before he continues. "You all have skeletons in your closet – or do you prefer the phrase 'red on your ledger'?"

I feel, more than see, Natasha tense behind me.

"Anyhow, whatever you call it, it will be _dragged_ out of you here. Painfully, if need be-" he says that entirely too cheerfully, "-and all you and your dear friends can do is sit back and enjoy the…show."

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. This was new. Totally new. And completely off my radar too – psychopaths, I could deal with. Gods? Been there, done that. Terrorists? Psh, _please._

 _This?_ Being stripped bare of all my secrets, even momentarily? I had no clue.

I wasn't used to not having a clue.

"Let the games begin."


	3. Chapter 3

**Warning: graphic descriptions of violence, gore, and the like ahead. And essentially for the entire story. Proceed at your own risk.**

* * *

"Eeny, meanie, mine-y, mo…"

Silence reigns over our little group as a chill descends over us, anticipation already making the air buzz.

"So many options, which one to choose?" the Mandarin muses, as if he were trying to decide on which candy bar to get, not which victim to torture. "A-ha!"

We all freeze like deer caught in headlights, and my heart leaps into my throat. _Please no, please no, please no, please…_

"The Monster!" the Mandarin announces – or his voice does, from unseen speakers. "Bring out the beast hiding behind a man."

I do my best to push down the relief that coursed through me.

Everyone's eyes immediately find Bruce as he's dragged, quite literally, into the inner ring and onto the table, one of the guards pressing a button that locks the restraints around his wrists, ankles, and head.

 _It's alright,_ my brain frantically whispers. _They can't hold the Hulk. He'll be fine. He'll be okay._

"Oh, and the 'Other Guy' won't be coming out to play any time soon," the Mandarin continues, as if he'd read my mind. "That would be too easy, wouldn't it? I think so."

Well, there goes _that_ idea.

I wince as four syringes filled with a yellow-ish substance close in on Bruce – one on either side of his neck, one on each forearm.

 _More drugs. Whoopee._

Bruce, to his credit, doesn't make a sound as the syringes empty their contents into his system, but I'm not sure if that's because he's practically a doctor or because he has a lot of experience with enemies inject him with things.

At first, nothing happens. We're all just staring at Bruce, who has a look of discomfort on his face but isn't doing much else; no screaming, no writhing in agony, nothing.

And then the room around him starts to flicker.

An ear-splitting roar shatters the air, and I involuntarily shiver because although I wasn't scared of the Hulk, the Hulk was terrifying.

The owner of the roar – a familiar, nine-foot-tall green being – suddenly appears in the middle of the room, which was odd enough in and of itself.

But then I start to notice differences in the picture – something was wrong here, _very_ wrong.

The Hulk – or the mirage that looked like him – was splattered with red. It was covering the side of his head, his chest, his back, his legs, but it was mainly concentrated on his mouth and hands.

 _As if he'd ripped someone apart with his bare hands,_ I realize suddenly, the mere thought causing my stomach to roll.

"No!" I jump and snap my head over to Bruce, who was now struggling against the restraints. "No! Don't hurt them! _No!_ "

 _Them?_

His words make more sense as, suddenly, seven figures appear, scattered on the ground around the mirage-Hulk.

 _Seven bodies_ , I correct myself, a new wave of horror slamming into me. _Seven mutilated bodies._

And, worse still, I recognize these bodies. There's a shock of red hair here, a familiar blue glow there.

This is _us._

And we're all _dead._

The carnage is worse than I'd seen in a long time, if not ever – Natasha's missing both arms, Dad's missing a chunk of his neck and shoulder, Steve's head was partially caved in, Bucky was missing both legs, Thor had a huge hole carved out of his chest, and I only recognized Clint, who was covered in blood and missing a head, because I knew his body as well as his mind.

The worst damage, though, is my own. It's an odd feeling, seeing a copy of yourself torn to pieces by the copy of a man who was currently in the next room.

I was covered in blood, almost head to toe – I think, beneath that, I was just wearing civilian clothes, a t-shirt and jeans. Other than that, my body looked like Swiss cheese – Swiss cheese with holes the size of Hulk's fist.

The sight actually makes me gag this time, and I numbly feel a hand close around my own, a calloused thumb rubbing circles on my palm.

I'm pulled harshly back into reality, the first thing I see being Clint watching me with concern and a question in his eyes. I just give him a nod, unable to form words at the moment, before turning back to watch Bruce.

He's screamed himself 85% percent hoarse by now, but what else would you expect after screaming for…I don't know how long it's been. It feels like eternity.

The scientist's cheeks are blotchy and red, tears streaming down his face and a look of utter devastation and helplessness I never want to see again. His mouth is moving but no words are coming out – luckily, Clint's tried to teach me lip-reading. Key word there being _tried_ , because I'm absolutely horrible at it, but I can still pick up a few words.

 _No…monster…kill them…because of me! Me…kill them…_

"He's frantic," I murmur aloud, as if it weren't obvious already. "We need to get him out."

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Miss Stark," the Mandarin suddenly says, causing me to startle and look for speakers. "The beast will only be released when I deem it so."

I grit my teeth and share a grim look with Clint, who was still clutching my hand. We were at the mercy of a madman here.

I had a feeling that this would be worse than anything we'd ever faced before – because we were facing _ourselves_.

* * *

I'm not sure how long Bruce is in that chamber, because time always gets screwy in captivity, but by the time they pull him out he's pale as a sheet, limp, and trembling. I don't get to see much else before he's dragged off down a different hallway while the rest of us are marched back to the cell.

We wait, in silence, for him to come back ( _if he is at all_ ), all of us, even the trained ones like Natasha, Clint, and Bucky, too shaken to speak about what had just happened.

If that was what awaited the rest of us…

I shiver at the thought, looking up as footsteps echo in the hallway before the door to the cell unlocks and swings open, hitting the wall with a dull _thud._

We all scramble back as Bruce is roughly thrown in; Steve, Bucky, and Thor, moving to catch him and lay him on the ground.

And here's a piece of irony: who treats the doctor when the doctor's the one that needs treatment?

Clint and Natasha, apparently, since they're the ones with the most battlefield medic training, which is exactly what we needed at the moment.

"He's alive," Clint reports, rocking back onto his haunches, and I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "He's in major shock and unresponsive for who knows how long, but he's alive."

The prognosis isn't anything I wasn't honestly expecting, not after… _that._

"We should get some sleep," Steve suggests quietly. "We'll need our strength for…whatever happens."

I want to point out that none of us will actually get any rest tonight; but, looking around at everyone's faces, I find that it's completely unnecessary.

We all find various places to lie down: they aren't very comfortable (as was expected, captors have a horrible sense of hospitality), but they would do for the night…or however long we were here.

I find myself flat on my back on the bench at the rear of the cell, staring blankly at the ceiling and trying to coax myself into sleep.

I give up just as I hear a rustling noise below me and tense, relaxing at the whispered "Taylor?"

"Yeah," I murmur, rolling onto my side to face my boyfriend.

"C'mere," he taps the ground beside him. "It might help."

I give him a dubious look but slide off the bench anyways, lying down with my back pressed against his chest, one of his arms slung over my hip and the other loosely intertwined with one of mine, my other hand bent under my head as a pillow.

He presses a soft kiss to the back of my neck before putting his head down and lying still, probably hoping for sleep that will most likely never come.

I sigh softly as I lay there, the day's events playing on a loop in my head as I stare through the half-light in the cell at Bruce, who was currently curled in a trembling under the watchful eye of Natasha.

We were already affected – all of us were in some state of shock, except for maybe Clint, Natasha, and Bucky.

And it was only day _one_ of god-knows-how-many.

It was only going to get worse from here.


	4. Chapter 4

The guards reappeared a few days later.

Well, that's technically incorrect. I don't know if it was really a few days later or not, because I couldn't tell. There were no windows in our little cell, and the lighting level was always kept the same – an irritating half-light that I hated and I was convinced that it was used just to push me that much farther.

But I digress.

The Beekeeper People dragged us all back to the chamber – as one group, leaving us all on edge and with no knowledge of who'd be subjected to that torture this time.

We'd only been here a few days, and anxiety already ruled.

As for the next victim, we all had our own theories: Steve thought it might be Thor, that they might be trying to eliminate the heavy muscle first. Bucky didn't think there _was_ a pattern. Natasha thought they might be working their way towards a certain person, though she wasn't sure who. Clint suspected they were going after people with something to hide. Dad was equal parts annoyed and weary and not up to offering an opinion. Thor was strangely pensive about it all.

Bruce had barely spoken for days.

Personally, I was well aware that we _all_ had something to hide. Even after eight years of fighting alongside one another, there were things we didn't know about each other. And until now, that had been fine. We were okay with that.

The Mandarin was not.

And now it didn't matter what we thought, because we were standing around like pigs waiting for slaughter.

"Taylor." I startle as Natasha hisses my name, realizing that one of her hands was clutching my shoulder as she stared intently at something past me.

I follow her gaze to Thor, who was currently being dragged out by no less than six Beekeepers.

How had I missed that?

My heart sinks as I watch the usually mighty god be strapped down to the table, and my mouth goes dry as I wonder what the millennia-old Prince of Asgard feared the most.

Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

The chamber soon goes dark, a night sky flickering into view about us as the floor turns into a luminescent rainbow color, almost like tinted, glowing glass.

 _The Bifrost,_ I realize. _This is the Bifrost, and-_

A figure cloaked in green and gold appears in front of Thor, keen green eyes locked on Thor's blue ones.

 _And there's Loki._

I step around Natasha to grab Clint's hand, giving it a squeeze to ground him here, and not wherever Loki dragged him inside his head.

He just glances at me before we both turn back to Loki, who didn't look anything like we had known.

He was shorter and more baby-faced, his bottle glass-green eyes showing a thirst for knowledge, not power, and there was only eagerness radiating from him, not the insanity that we had seen four years ago.

Because this, judging by Loki's stature and attitude, was a younger Loki, the one Thor had known and fought tooth and nail to bring back.

So why was he part of Thor's worst nightmare?

"Brother," Thor rumbles. "Brother, please-"

"Thor," younger-Loki laughs. "Why do you worry? I will be alright. You'll protect me, right-"

He's cut off by the Bifrost trembling under his feet, the part that was just under his feet shattering to reveal a gaping, swirling pit of darkness that seemed to suck you in-

"Taylor, focus," Clint murmurs, his breath warming my ear. I turn to give him an incredulous look.

Focus? Devote my attention to _this_? To-

My train of thought is cut off by a horrific – _young_ – scream, and I whirl around just in time to see younger-Loki be dragged into that black hole, his green eyes frantically finding Thor and begging him yo help him, _save him-_

And Thor's roaring, shaking the table but never breaking free, and then Loki's gone – just like that, leaving an intact Bifrost and a far from intact Thor behind.

Ohhhkay, so that's definitely some nightmare-quality stuff, but you'd think that this is it, this is where Thor wakes up, right? _Right?_

 _Wrong._

Because there's a shadow moving on the opposite side of the Bifrost, quickly materializing into a haggard figure, someone on their hands and knees, all skin and bones (except for where there's no skin) and holy _nope it did not have_ eyes _-_

Пресвятая Богородица, this was zombie-Loki, more than likely what might have happened after the first time he not-died.

 _God, I hope he's really dead, wherever he is,_ I hope reverently. _I don't want to see this._

"Brother," zombie-Loki moans, and I do mean moans – deep enough to tremble the room.

But that could've been the illusion.

"Brother," zombie-Loki moan again. "Why did you not save me?"

"I did my best," Thor pleads. "You must believe me, I did."

"You didn't do _enough_!" Loki screams, and I realize that this is what Thor says every time he sees this at night. "You never do enough for me."

Thor stays silent.

And then the scene changes again, a golden scepter flickering into essence in zombie-Loki's hands. I suck in a breath as Clint squeezes my hand harder, hopefully not harming anything important inside my one flesh hand.

"Midgard will burn," Loki continues lowly. "It will burn beneath my hands, and it will be on _your_ conscience!"

"Loki, no!" Thor shouts. "Do not do this!"

Loki just gives a maniacal grin, more like the psychopath I knew (and killed) four years earlier. "This is your fault, _brother_." He spits out the word venomously. "Where are your precious heroes now?"

Thor doesn't respond, seemingly stunned into silence.

Loki lifts the scepter, now glowing blue, and aims it at Thor's heart, throwing it like a javelin-

-and it never lands. Everything goes black in less than a blink of an eye, leaving my head spinning and holding my breath from the suddenness of it all.

Before I can recapture my breath the lights are turned back on at full force, sending me reeling as I'm temporarily blinded and roughly manhandled out of the chamber.

By the time my vision is fully returned, I'm being thrown into the white-walled cell they had marched us from before.

That seemed to be the routine: cell, chamber, psychological torture, cell. Repeat.

I wince as I'm thrown roughly into the cell, using the training that had been drilled into me to roll with the impact, popping back up onto my hands and knees once the door is closed again.

I crawl over to Thor, who had been unceremoniously dumped in the middle of the floor. The god is lying still on his back, the only obvious movement being his chest rising and falling beneath the orange prison-style jumpsuit we all still wore.

I maneuver so that I'm kneeling next to his head, completely tense in case he lashed out. Waking up from nightmares – or flashbacks – was never pretty, always sudden, and often violent.

"Thor?" I question quietly. "Thor." I nudge his shoulder gently, which was honestly a stupid move, but it causes his arm to shift on his chest, giving me a better view of his face.

His eyes terrify me.

Not because they are angry, or at all emotional in any way, but because his sky-blue eyes – usually exuberant – were so completely empty at the moment, devoid of almost all emotion; except, that is, loss.

"Leave him," a quiet voice whispers, and I snap my head up to see Bruce leaning heavily against a nearby wall. "Leave him," he repeats. "He needs to find a way back into reality."

I narrow my eyes at him dubiously. "You want me to leave him while he's suffering."

Bruce just shrugs. "He was already suffering before this," he points out, an absolute certainty in his voice that sends shivers down my spine. "We all were."

I have no response to that.


	5. Chapter 5

Our time in custody had become a sick guessing game of sorts.

From what we could gather about the Mandarin and his Beekeeper people, he would take one of us seemingly at random, strap them into the chamber, and force the rest of us to watch a drug-induced horror show for what felt like forever but was maybe a few hours, five at most.

After that, we'd all get thrown back into the cell and the latest victim would get what was probably a few days to "recover" before we all got dragged back in.

So, now that Thor had pretty much recovered to what could be consider a normal level, we had started guessing who would be picked next. Was there any order to what he did, or was it random?

Was he picking people with the…harshest…pasts first?

And what even counted as a _worst nightmare_? I didn't know what mine was, to be honest.

We were all quiet as we were dragged to the chamber for a third time, each one of us silently wondering if we were going to be next, and trying to mentally prepare as much as we could if that were to be the case.

Not that any amount of mental preparation could prepare for that, but still. We could try.

The guards threw us in roughly, Clint catching me this time and giving me a quick, chaste kiss before setting me onto my own two feet just as four Beekeepers come back in.

I keep a scrupulous eye on them as they move around the cell, never letting them move from my sight.

Because of that, I saw them grab Natasha roughly, two on each side.

Because of that, I saw her struggle and growl against her captors, fighting back with little to no effect.

Because of that, I saw a blank, emotionless mask slam down over her face as she realized she wasn't getting away.

I'm still watching as she's dragged into the inner chamber, restrained to the table, and injected with the same yellow-ish liquid that Thor had before her, and Bruce before that.

Her nightmare starts out…quietly, if you can believe that.

The room is flushed in a red light – I recognize it, sadly, as the same color as blood – and the air immediately becomes thick with a sense of foreboding, anxiety, tension and-

-and _fear._

The immediate sense of danger in the room sends shivers down my spine and floods my system with fear. _No,_ I squash it down, swallowing deeply. _It's only an illusion, there's no danger here. It's not real, it's not._

 _The last time you ignored danger, you got kidnapped,_ a sardonic voice in the back of my mind pipes up. _Look where that got you._

I shake my head violently, shivering against the acute sense of malignance in the air. I jump as a hand lands on my shoulder, turning to look at Bucky, who was looking through the glass with an uneasy frown on his face. "Buck?"

"I know what this is," he explains, little emotion in his voice. "The Red Room – Красная комната. It's not-"

He's interrupted by a shrill scream – female, but far too high, far too _young_ to be Natasha.

In the middle of the red haze, a small figure appears – a young girl, with blonde hair in twin braids and a blank, mindless look in her blue eyes as she kneels on the ground. A second girl flickers into being beside her, and a third, then a fourth, until there are twenty-seven girls, nine wide and three deep, all with emotionless, blank masks on.

They all stand as one, each girl turning to face the one next to, or just behind, her.

For a moment, nothing happens.

And that's when I see the guns.

Each girl has a gun pressed against the dead center of their neighbor's forehead, a move that is mirrored by their neighbors. Every girl has a gun to their head and is pointing a gun to someone else's, and however this ends I know it won't be good.

And it isn't.

Twenty-seven guns go off at once with a massive _bang_ that echoes around the chamber, and twenty-seven little girls – the oldest of which might've been twelve or so – drop like stones, eyes blank and sightless with bloody bullet holes front and center in each of their foreheads.

The floor of the chamber now looks like the sight of a massacre, with blood collecting in pools which then collected in a massive lake. A lake of scarlet, flooding the entire floor of the chamber about two inches deep.

Combine that with the red haze that still hung in the air, and we were all quite literally seeing red.

In the middle of all the red – _choking, blinding, suffocating red_ – I catch a blip of green.

Narrowing my eyes, I focus on the color and realize that I'm looking at a pair of emerald green eyes, belonging to another young girl, a young girl with scarlet hair bound in a tight bun.

I recognize the girl right away; she's more vulnerable, yes, and maybe thirty years or so younger, but I'd recognize Natasha anywhere.

Younger-Natasha is standing in a pale pink ballerina's outfit, the prim, pink lace quickly becoming stained by the blood all around her. A second figure appears, a man facing younger-Natasha with his back to real-Natasha.

I don't recognize the man, but she obviously does, given how real-Natasha – who had been silent until now – takes in a sharp breath. This instantly makes me dislike the unknown man, a dislike which is only furthered when he starts to speak.

"You are nothing," he said plainly, as if that were a fact that Natasha should have known already. I watch real-Natasha flinch. "You are worth nothing, and are made only to serve one purpose: to kill. You will kill until all of our enemies are dead, and until your hands are soaked in red. You will never get the blood out Natalia, for it was never meant to come out, was it? No."

"You're wrong," real-Natasha croaks suddenly, causing me to tear my eyes away and refocus on her. "You're wrong. I'm better than this, I am."

"Never, Natalia. You will never outrun your past. The blood with always stain your hands." The man raises a gun, pointing it straight at Natasha. I instantly reacting, my hand twitching for the nearest weapon (that I didn't have) before realizing that it was still an illusion, that Natasha wasn't in any physical danger.

Her mind, however, was another story.

The gun fires, and Natasha actually cries out before the red haze that had been lingering on the borders of the scene fills the chamber, then slowly drifting away to reveal…

…nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It takes me a long moment to realize that it's all over, and it's pressure on my left palm that brings me back – ASL letters, slowly spelling out _o-k-a-y, o-k-a-y, o-k-a-y._

I turn towards Clint, who releases my hand in order to wrap his arms around me and pull me close, murmuring sweet nothings into my hair. I can feel him trembling and don't blame him – he's known Natasha for a just under a decade, and whether or not he already knew about what we just witnessed or not, it's got to hurt more than it did for me.

We're eventually roughly torn apart and dragged back to the cell, thrown back in and followed by Natasha, whom I catch roughly. She's pale and limp, with her eyes unseeing and I'd think she's dead if it weren't for the pulse throbbing on her neck.

I can't help but notice how badly my left hand is shaking – a two-year old injury manifesting as shock.

Bruce quickly takes her from me, lying her down on the bench at the back of the cell. I move to my dad's side, hooking a hand through his elbow and leaning my head on his shoulder.

Today the Mandarin – whoever he was – had actually managed to break through the Black Widow's defenses, which was a terrifyingly astonishing thought because she was trained to resist things like this.

The rest of us, sans Bucky and Clint, were not.

So if Natasha went down…what did that mean for everyone else?


	6. Chapter 6

**First off, I'd like to apologize for how late this chapter is – school's just started near me, and life's been crazy.**

 **Secondly, I'd like to give a big shout out and a thank to my beta and friend, RussianAssassin, who rekindled this chapter when I was stuck.**

 **Third, thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. Support is always appreciated!**

* * *

"Taylor."

I roll over onto my side, batting a hand in the general direction of the voice.

"Taylor, wake up."

I begin to groan in tired irritation, jolting at the hand that is suddenly slapped over my mouth.

I jolt upwards into a sitting position, my senses instantly going on full alert as I whirl around to face my "attacker".

"Natasha? What the hell?" I gape as I face the Russian assassin. "You're…er…you!"

"Well, yeah," she retorts softly, so as to not wake everyone else. "Did you expect me to be Tony?"

I scowl at her and give a half-hearted glare. "You know what I mean. The others took days to…recover."

"They weren't trained for this," she points out bluntly. "I was."

I frown slightly at the implications of that – hadn't we just _watched_ her training? It wasn't something to take pride in – and watch as she stands up, gracefully making her way among the sleeping bodies to an empty section of the bench at the back of the cell. "Come here."

I tilt my head but follow her, albeit less gracefully – where she looked like a dancer, I played an awkward game of hopscotch to get from one end of the cell to the other. Once I reached the bench, I hopped up and into a crouch, my weight balanced on the balls of me feet.

Natasha, sitting normally next to me, gives me an appraising look. "You wouldn't believe how much you actually act like a bird sometimes."

I roll my eyes at her before dropping them to scan the six sleeping people below us. I pay special attention to Thor and Bruce, the former of which was thrashing and muttering under his breath, the latter silently shaking within his sleep.

"We need to get out," I sigh.

"I know," she agrees. "But would it even be possible right now? We're all in bad places, and not just physically either."

I nod and turn to look at her – upon closer inspection, I can see new lines on Natasha's face that weren't there twenty-four hours ago, along with the fact that her words had a thin Russian edge to them; something that only happened when she was upset. She was not fully alright – you'd have to be a robot in order to be 100% here – but she was doing better than Thor and Bruce were.

"It's going to have to be enough," I point out, rather needlessly. Silence falls for another moment before something occurs to me. "Do you have any idea who has us?"

Natasha takes on a contemplative look. "Not _exactly._ The Mandarin is a big name among the shadier side of the world, and he's mainly known for allying himself with certain…terrorist groups." I notice her falter on the last sentence, but decide not to comment as she continues. "Other than that, nobody knows anything about the man. He popped up around the early 2000's, but other than that we don't have a name, no locations, nothing."

"Great," I moan. "We know nothing. Why do we always know nothing?"

She shrugs. "It's not like they're going to readily give information to prisoners. If-"

She's cut off by the now-familiar sound of footsteps marching in the hallway beyond the cell, rousing everyone else from sleep.

I sigh as the guards come in, yanking us all to our feet. The options for who was to go next were getting limited – assuming they wouldn't double anyone up, the only people left were Dad, Clint, Bucky, Steve, and myself.

So I had a choice between watching my dad be tortured, my boyfriend, the man who was, for all intents and purposes, my older brother, or _his_ not-boyfriend and my Captain.

Wonderful. Just _fantastic._

I wince as I'm shoved into the outer chamber, nearly tripping over my dad, who had fallen on his way in.

"Sorry." I crouch on his other side and pull him out of the way of the door as it slams shut. "How are you?"

"You know, I've been better," he quips. "Psychological warfare really puts a damper on things."

I crack a smile at that, ignoring the vaguely disapproving look Steve sent our way.

"It isn't really warfare if it's only one-sided," Bucky comments.

"Well we haven't picked up a mind-reader yet, so…"

"I just don't like that we haven't been doing _anything_ ," he sighs.

"Hey, Buck." Steve puts a hand on his best friend's shoulder. "It'll be alright, you'll see."

Bucky just gives a noncommittal grunt and leans back against the nearest wall, making no effort to shrug Steve's hand off.

I grin at their completely obvious actions and oblivious attitudes, turning away so they couldn't see.

The jovial mood in the chamber is quickly crushed by the door opening and six guards marching in, all of us instantly going on full alert.

Four of the guards close in on Dad almost immediately, and my heart jumps into my throat as I try to stand, to do something – _anything_ – to stop this from happening.

But I can't, because two of the guards are pinning my arms behind my back and holding me down, preventing me from moving, let alone struggling.

 _These bastards knew I would try and stop this,_ I realize suddenly, as a hand is roughly slapped over my mouth before I can scream. I wince against the taste of the coarse orange fabric, biting down on a finger that comes too close to my teeth and get a slap in return.

The blow whips my head to the side, and I turn back just in time to see the door close behind the four guards dragging Dad.

Their job done, the guards let me go; essentially throwing me at Steve, who clumsily catches me, being extremely careful not to put his hands anywhere that would get him slapped.

He puts me down as soon as the guards leave. Bruce, Clint, and Bucky all crowd around, and for all different reasons.

"Taylor, stay still," Bruce admonishes. "I need to check your head."

"But they-"

"I know."

" _But-_ "

"I know, myshka," Bucky cuts me off. "I know."

Once Bruce has determined that I do not, in fact, have a concussion or anything more than bruises on my cheek and arms, he lets me go and I quickly cross the chamber to the glass wall, which gave me a clear view of the torture chambers.

I arrive just in time to see Dad's nightmare begin.

It starts out quietly – but then again, so had Natasha's.

The first scene is depicting a wasteland, like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie; a dark, stormy sky looking over piles and piles of trash and rusted metal with not a sign of life or even movement anywhere in sight.

"Is his worst nightmare B-rated horror movies?" Bucky wonders quietly. I jab him in the ribs in response to that, glaring at him in a way that makes even the haughtiest businessmen cower.

Bucky just gives me a small smile before he turns to look at the glass again, where the smile drops off his face faster than Steve without a parachute. He gently grabs my jaw and turns it in the same direction – where it proceeds to hit the floor.

On a particularly big piece of scrap metal sits a throne; a metal monstrosity that looks like something out of Game of Thrones (which was Clint's guilty pleasure, not mine). Except for the fact that the one in Game of Thrones probably wasn't dripping blood off the spikes at the back.

Sitting on the throne was a man, a man I recognized but didn't at the same time.

One on hand, the man looked like my dad, with a face and body that had been engraved in my memory since, well, my memory had existed. On the other hand, there were obvious differences: the man was wearing a crisp black suit, which I had never seen Dad wear before, with a tie the color of blood; both of which contrasted sharply with his pale, sallow skin (Dad had a nice Malibu tan) and sickly, piercing jade green eyes (Dad had a soft, earthy hazel color). The man was also wearing a crown – which explained the throne, I guess – but it was just a tangled ring of what might've been rebar with spikes on top. It looked like something that might head your way in battle, not a decorative headpiece.

I didn't recognize the man, but judging by the sudden pallor in Dad's face, he did.

"Anthony," a voice purrs. "Or should I say… _Merchant_?"

 _Oh._

I grimace and hiss out a breath, causing Clint to wrap an arm around my waist and Bucky to give us a confused look. "Merchant?"

"I'll explain…eventually," I murmur against my boyfriend's shoulder. "You aren't the only one with a less-than-favorable past."

Bucky nods in recognition, stepping back and leaning against Steve – who looked equal parts sympathetic for Dad and pissed off at whomever this voice belonged to.

"The blood on your hands has grown, Anthony," the voice continues – it's definitely female, silky and seductive. "The world is burning at your hands."

"It is necessary," the man – Anthony – deadpans, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "They do not understand my greatness. They must either understand or perish. It's simple."

Dad – real Dad, not this Anthony dude – makes a strangled noise, and I look over to see him pale and trembling within the restraints. I shiver, and Clint tightens his hold.

"You are a monster, Anthony," the voice says – and I notice that she doesn't seem terribly _upset_ about that fact. "You take millions of souls per day. People cower in fear at your feet, while you rule them with a fist of iron."

I frown at that bit of irony, combined with the foreboding feeling that had been steadily gaining within my head – this fear was hitting quite close to home, and I was beginning to get a feel for what was going on. I didn't like it...at all.

"You finally grew into your legacy," the voice comments, sounding oddly satisfied. "Are you ready for the final test?"

"Always," Anthony replies, sounding fanatical and insane and desperate, all rolled into a single word.

A second figure appears in front of the throne, this one obviously a prisoner – bound with their hands behind their back, on their knees with a black hood covering their face and concealing their identity.

And then the hood comes off, and none of us are quite prepared for who it is.

"Dad, please," the prisoner begs. "Dad?"

 _Me._

 _I_ was this man's – Anthony, Merchant, whatever – prisoner. _What did I do?_ I idly wonder, my eyes not leaving - well, me. _Or did I do anything? Was my crime merely existing?_

 _After all,_ I muse, _this 'Anthony' fellow doesn't seem like a very fatherly guy._

"I am not your father, you insolent whelp," the Merchant snarls, leaning forward in his throne. "I have never loved you! You are a object to me! Mere property!"

"That's not true!" Dad howls. "THAT ISN'T TRUE!"

 _I know_ , I want to tell him, if he could hear me. All I say out loud is, "I hate this."

"We all do." Surprisingly it's Bruce who replies, standing to Bucky's left. "This isn't right."

"Don't let it get to you," Steve urges, ever the motivator. "That's what he wants."

"Well, it's working," I bite out bitterly, dropping the conversation as I turn back to the glass, watching as the Merchant rises from his throne to stand before not-me.

"Do you admit to your crimes?" he asks coolly.

"I don't understand," not-me cries. "I haven't done anything."

"Oh, no, my _dear_ ," Anthony sneers, giving a toothy smile. "Your existance is enough for me."

I shiver involuntarily, and Clint presses a light kiss to my shoulder.

Turning my attention back to the scene, I watch Anthony – the Merchant – raise a gun; I recognize the model: it's a Stark-made pistol, shoots .44 rounds, and was in production when I was ten or so.

I was about to watch my father, who was also not my father, kill me (also not me), with a weapon that both of us had designed.

God, I hated my life sometimes.

"Add one more body to the list," Anthony whispers before the gun goes off and I – _it's not me, it's not_ – slump over sideways, falling onto the wasteland at the foot of the throne.

"Ah, Anthony," a male voice says, and a man appears, paying no attention to the body on the floor. "I'm so proud of you."

Behind me, Steve makes a choked noise. "H-Howard." Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Bucky reach for his hand.

"I'm so proud of you," Howard repeats. "You've become exactly what I wanted..."

And then he smiles, a horrible grin that will probably haunt me for years. Howard – my grandfather's – eyes are dark and menacing as he finishes his sentence.

"...a monster."

The two words echo hauntingly.

"A monster…"

"A monster…"

" _A monster..."_

And the nightmare goes black – a fact I don't realize right away. I'm too busy watching Dad tremble against the restraints, eyes vacant and staring at nothing in particular as the guards drag him out of the chamber.

The trip back to the cell passes in a blur; I'm vaguely aware of Clint's presence by my side and Natasha at my back, and not much else.

The next thing I know I'm sitting on the floor of the cell, watching Natasha rub soothing circles on my dad's back as he didn't talk or even move, save for his chest rising and falling.

We didn't know much about the situation we were in, but what we _did_ know was that the Mandarin wanted to get under our skins – that much was clear.

I stood by what I had said earlier – _it was working._


	7. Chapter 7

**I'm baaaack! Hi, I'm not dead. This chapter has been in the works for a while, and it was supposed to be up a few days ago, but then a little thing called Hurricane Matthew happened.**

 **I don't know how much you guys have heard about the storm, but it was strong enough to take away power for 26 hours…luckily the US death toll was low. I feel bad for Haiti.**

 **So, anyways, here's this. Enjoy.**

* * *

Something changed the day after they took Dad.

It was an epiphany of sorts – like we'd all been blindly stumbling towards a cliff and now _whoops,_ we'd just dropped off the edge. (Which I have literally done before.)

Why this change, you may ask? Why now, after what may be weeks of one-sided psychological warfare?

Simple. They took _Tony Stark._ They took a person that was undoubtedly mine ( _mine,_ for over two decades now) and made him relive a fear that was still one of the very few things he tried to shield me from, meaning that it was Very, Very Bad…if that wasn't abundantly clear _already._

But seriously, the Mandarin, whoever he was, whoever he worked for, he harmed one of the few people that were purely mine. My determination had gone from 'get out for my own mental health' to 'get out, burn this place to the ground, and leave no survivors on the way'.

It was going _down_.

Although I wasn't quite sure _how_. They had stripped us all bare of any and all weapons, and even though the good majority of us could use our literal bodies as weapons, a few of us couldn't, and we were all some form of unstable, be it mentally or physically.

But we would get out, or die trying.

"Taylor?" I jump as I'm ripped from that particularly depressing train of thought, and turn to find Clint watching me intently. "Sorry, did I miss something?"

He shakes his head and gives me a hopeful look. "I can't just stare at my beautiful girlfriend for no reason?"

I give a small smirk and put my head on his shoulder. "We're in the middle of the Apocalypse of the Month, if you haven't noticed. Seems awfully inconvenient time to admire me."

I can practically feel his smirk as he rests his head on top of mine. "There is no inconvenient time to admire you," he murmurs into my hair.

I roll my eyes even as I blush. "You're a cheesy idiot."

"But I'm _your_ cheesy idiot," he counters. "Y'know our anniversary's coming up? Or it might've passed already, I'm not sure."

"Mhm," I hum against his shoulder. "Did you have any plans?" I ask, mainly sarcastically.

"Well…" he pretends to ponder this. "I was _going to_ bring my girlfriend to a mid-range fancy restraint, maybe going to see a movie or something, show her the gift I brought her, and bring her home for some dessert." He grins lecherously with the innuendo.

I thump him gently on the shoulder, but don't disagree with his plans. "That'll be nice. If, you know, we get out of here without dying first."

My boyfriend scowls at me. "Way to kill the mood."

"It's true," I shrug.

"What makes you think we'll get out?" he asks bitterly.

"Because I will be damned if I give up now. I'm going down fighting, if nothing else," I declare with absolute certainty.

Clint isn't buying it. "That's a bit naïve, don't you think?"

"Naïve?" I repeat, frowning as I pull back to look at him. "It's not naïve, it's realistic. We're getting out of here."

"What's the point, Taylor?" He sighs wearily.

"What's the point?" I parrot incredulously. "The point, _dear Hawkeye,_ is to get out of here – preferably alive, but I'd settle for sane at this point." The last half of my sentence practically oozed with the sharp, acerbic sarcasm that I seldom used with Clint, but I was tired, hungry, thirsty, pissed off, and quite possibly insane.

Oh, look, now I had a headache as well. _Whoopee._

"Chill on the optimism, _sweetie_ ," Clint retorts in the same tone. "Look around you – we've been under this guy's thumb for what might be _months_ , we're all effin' insane by this point, and none of us are fit enough to get out! Face it, we're all going to die here!"

"Oh, _are_ we?" I round on him, eyes blazing. "You're the one that planned our anniversary for god-knows-when. The dinner, the 'dessert' – does any of this ring a bell? Yeah? Okay, then please tell me why in Thor's name you were leading me on by making plans you didn't plan to follow through on!"

"Taylor, calm down-"

"Calm down?" I growl. "You want me to _calm down_? I can't _calm down –_ we've been trapped by this – this _bastard_ for so long now, I'm honestly surprised we haven't all gone down the drain. We've faced torture day in and day out for who knows how long now! Damn it, Clint – I'm _hungry_ and I'm _tired_ and I'm _cold_ and I want out of here – I want out _now!_ And you have no freaking right to tell me to CALM DOWN!" I scream, tears pricking at my eyes. "I WILL NOT CALM DOWN! I'M TRYING TO SAVE YOUR GODDAMN LIFE!"

He opens his mouth, but I cut him off with a cat-like hiss. "Don't."

"I just-"

"I. Said. _Don't,"_ I force out between clenched teeth, turning sharply on my heel and stalking over to a corner as far away from everyone else as possible. "I don't want to talk about this right now."

I'm not looking at him, but I hear Clint take a deep breath and simply respond with "Okay," before walking away.

I swipe a hand over my face, grimacing as it came away wet – I didn't know what the Mandarin could or couldn't see, but he might have just seen me at my worst, my lowest point since…I can't remember when.

I rest my throbbing head against the wall and close my eyes as I listen to someone – Natasha, judging by the careful, barely-there sound of the footsteps – gets up to check on Dad, who, by the sounds of it, was it the throws of another nightmare.

Once he's settled again and I hear his breathing even out, the footsteps turn around to go back to where Nat was sleeping, but they pause.

"Taylor?" The assassin's voice is soft and melodic, clearly doing her best to not aggravate my headache.

"…yes?"

"We will get out, okay? One way or another. I would rather die than stay."

"What if that's what this comes to, Tasha?" I mumble quietly. "What if we have to die?"

There's another pause before some more footsteps sound, these padding towards me. I crack open one eye just a sliver to see another figure sitting down next to me. "I think you knew this day would come, eventually. You've been in this game for almost ten years now."

"Still," I sigh wearily. "I'm only twenty-two, Natasha. The rest of you have already lived your lives to some extent – or lived two lives, if you're a super soldier. I haven't."

She apparently doesn't know what to say to that, because silence reigns once more in the cell.

I curl into myself a little tighter and form a pillow with my arms, putting my head down and trying to get some sleep.

.

The silence hadn't changed much by the time I woke up the next morning, which wasn't odd; no one really felt like carrying on a conversation while waiting for one of your teammates to be chosen for torture.

What _does_ strike me as odd is the fact that the cell is entirely, _completely_ silent. Even superheroes breathe, and either I'd gone deaf overnight or they weren't breathing.

I snap my eyes open and whip my head around, only to find that I can't because my neck is stiff as a board.

It didn't feel natural, either; I knew the position I slept in wasn't the best, but this was a bit of a fuzzy feeling…like a tickle at the back of my brain, that felt like…it felt like…what did it feel like?

 _Uh oh._

Alarm bells are immediately set off in my head, noting that not only was I essentially paralyzed with frazzled though processes, but my tongue felt puffy and swollen, even though I knew it wasn't.

Sadly, I'd been drugged before, and I knew exactly what this was.

And I'd been here for a while, so as for what awaited me…

Well…shit.


	8. Chapter 8

**Thanks to RussianAssassin, Esha Napoleon, TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms, and Anonymous (Guest) for reviewing the last chapter.**

* * *

Tony's POV

I've seen a lot of scary things in my time. That's to be expected, when you lead a life like mine.

For the most part, the scary stuff fits into one of two categories: When You're a Superhero, and When You're a Parent. The former usually includes things like wormholes in the sky, dead people, and screwed up science experiments that are either missing (or have too many) limbs. Not that I'd ever admit these fears out loud, though, because the Superhero Code of Conduct (which was totally a thing) didn't include being scared out of your wits, but it _did_ include being a role model to villains and children alike.

The latter category was a shorter list, but it usually involved either the fear of Taylor getting hurt or Taylor _actually_ getting hurt. This was the type of fear that was all-encompassing and halted your breathing for a second, made your heart skip a beat. These fears have gotten both better and worse since Taylor became Iron Beta: on one hand, I know she can defend herself just fine; on the other, I really wish she'd stop having to dive bomb evil mutants like she did two Februarys ago.

So, to recap, I've seen some scary stuff over my forty-plus years.

But nothing quite tops watching my daughter, pale and unmoving, be manhandled in preparation for torture.

The rest of us were in the observation chamber and could do nothing but watch, per usual, and none of us knew what we were in for.

I had my suspicions, of course – Taylor had been through a lot of crap, and she inherited my talent for BS-ing your way past your problems. Her worst nightmare might be something involving Stane, Loki, or even Rebe – her mother, but there were things I hadn't been there for, like during Afghanistan or whatever Stane did before I realized what was going on.

The only other person with a clue as to what was going on was Clint, who I knew had held Taylor after nightmares in the little under a year that they'd shared Clint's floor (so what if I had Jarvis alert me when she woke up crying?). But judging by the apprehensive look on Feathers' face, he had as much of an idea as I did.

Both of us watch with bated breath as Taylor's dragged over to the chair and clamped in. I grimace as the nightmare serum is stabbed into her, and her entire body stiffens.

Taylor's nightmare starts with the distinct sound of breaking glass and her eyes snapping open, pupils dilated in fear.

More glass breaks, and crystalline shards start to appear on the ground – half a glass here, the neck of a bottle there.

"Is that a shot glass?" Clint asks from behind me, and I look to see his keen eyes fixed on something ahead of us. "Why would she-?" He stops, and something seems to connect in his brain because he just purses his lips into a thin white line.

"Clint," Natasha, on my right, begins hesitantly, "It might not be like that."

Oh, right. I forgot the spysassins could read each other's minds.

"But it might be," Clint insists quietly. "I guess we'll find out."

I didn't know what 'that' was, but so far all Taylor's nightmare had been glass breaking and the air being coated in an almost palatable level of fear.

Did it have something to do with Stane's drinking habits? Did Loki do something to her mind? Was this a metaphor for-

My thought process is abruptly cut off as a man appears in the middle of the room. He looks like he might be in his late forties, with dark hair and a scruffy face, an expensive watch on his wrist. One of his hands is loosely curled around a bottle half-full of an amber liquid, probably scotch or whiskey.

So…her fear is a drunk, possibly homeless guy?

I look around at the group, hoping for some clarification, but what I get is a very different thing: I find Clint frozen in place, eyes wide; Natasha's moved over to grip his hand like a lifeline, Thor looks equal parts confused and angry, Steve and Bucky were not-so-subtly holding onto each other, and Bruce's face was carefully blank, even with the undercurrent of fear running through his eyes.

Clint and Bruce were the most heavily affected, which I didn't get, because the only negative connotations they had to alcohol formed when they were kids, kids with screwed up alcoholic fathers who-

Oh.

Oh _god._

That man – Taylor's worst nightmare, the thing that she's too afraid of even to talk about, the proverbial monster under her bed-

Was _me_.

 _Oh_ _ **god.**_

All the air rushes from my lungs at that revelation, and I can't seem to get enough of it back in. My heart hammers at my rib cage as I stare through the glass at myself, stumbling and drunk and intimidating; the world was getting blurry, that wasn't good, was it?

"Tony, focus," a familiar voice orders. "Come back to us."

What? I didn't get it, I was right here, wasn't I? Still, I push my determination into focusing, and soon enough Natasha's face swims into view, only inches from mine.

I jerk my head back, but she just gives me an even look. "Tony, look a little closer at the memory."

"I don't-"

"For me."

I eye her for a second before sighing and looking into the inner chamber at myself.

Or almost me, anyways; upon closer inspection, Natasha was right: this me had a scruffy, unkempt beard, bloodshot, puffy eyes, and the rosy red cheeks of a full-time drinker.

Taylor wasn't scared of me – she was scared of _drunken_ me.

My mind flashes back to two years ago, when I was drunk and miserable and _threw a shot glass at her head._

"I'm sorry," I mutter as if she can hear me. "I'm so sorry…"

She can't hear me, of course, because she's too busy listening to her nightmare.

"You're useless, y'know that?" drunk-me slurs. "Nev'r wanted a kid, but I woulda taken a boy, a'least. Strong men…men of iron…no'thin like you…prince'ess an' tea parties…nev'r wanted a girl…"

I whimper at the multitude of lies in that statement – I honestly preferred a girl over a boy, despite some of the awkward moments, because Taylor wouldn't be forced to the same code of strength that a boy would.

"An' I nev'r wanted a kid, no sir," the nightmare continues, voice growing louder with each word. "Y'took Becca from me…you took her away! We woulda been happy…y'shoula nev'r been born, I swear to god…"

"No," Taylor pleads, finally breaking the veil of silence she'd been under. "You don't mean that…please, you're drunk, this isn't you…"

"Don' tell me what is an' isn' me!" The nightmarish-me shouts, swinging the arm with the bottle in her general direction. "Y'don't know anythin', stupid, stupid girl! Shut up b'fore I do it for you!"

My throat goes dry. _Please don't let me mean what I think I meant…_

"M'ybe Obie has the righ' idea," he continues. "S'that all I've gotta do? Jus' show y'who's tha boss 'round here…yeah, tha' shoul' do the trick…"

"No," I breathe. Behind me, Bucky swears caustically in Russian; she must've told him, then, at least as much as I knew.

I watch in horror as I throw the bottle full of liquid – either whiskey of scotch – at Taylor, who shrinks back against the table as it appears to shatter just to the left of her head.

A little voice in the back of my mind reminds me that this was all one big hallucination, that the glass isn't currently cutting into her skin and the alcohol isn't really making the (non-existent) cuts burn, but I can't seem to remember that as Taylor starts pulling at her restraints, still begging for me to stop.

Nightmare-me stumbles closer to Taylor, who starts making honest-to-god _whimpering_ noises and scrambles to get as far away from, well, _me_ as possible.

Nightmare-me straightens up to his full height of about five feet, ten inches (five more than Taylor) and, with his bloodshot eyes flashing, raises a hand sharply, as if to deliver a slap.

Taylor shrinks back further, looking impossibly small as she trembles violently against the restraints, but the hit never comes.

Instead nightmare-me is joined by the only thing that could possibly be worse: a tall, bald man with a grey beard, dressed in a light grey suit.

Obadiah Stane.

I barely hear Bucky growl lowly as my guilt and fear are momentarily replaced by white-hot anger at the man my father trusted, I trusted, and my daughter feared above almost all else.

"Listen to your father, you brat," he commands, voice booming. "You're worthless. You're useless. All you do is whine, whine, _whine._ I've worked for this company for nearly fifty years, and one snotty little impudent _child_ will not ruin that! You need to learn your place in this family and this company, and it sure as _hell_ isn't at the head!"

"She isn't useless," Clint hisses from a few feet away, I can see his grey eyes flashing murderously. "She's the farthest thing from useless, and that ignorant twat-waffle has no right to say that to her."

If Clint Barton hadn't worked his way onto my outwardly-bad-but-secretly-good graces by now, that would've secured him a spot near the top. Extra points for the creative insults.

Speaking of creative insults, Tasha's currently muttering something in Spanish that has something to do with taking a dump in Obie's milk, and Steve's reciting some Gaelic about the devil's cat eating something.

Bucky? Oh, he's just using his "DEFCON 1 Winter Soldier" glare, a look that will have most pro-wrestlers crying for their mommies.

Taylor's gone completely silent, but she's just reducing to thrashing around now, and I can almost see the bruises forming on her wrists and ankles.

"I'm…not useless," she pants. "'M not. I have…people. You…you've been dead…for nine years, you bastard."

"Oh, ho ho ho," Stane laughs, the great Santa-like laugh that used to delight me but now just shoots chills down my spine. "You were always delusion, weren't you, brat? I'm alive for as long as you keep me alive. I can have a hold on you for as long as _I_ want to."

He reaches into his suit jacket and produces a blood-stained knife; I don't recognize it, but for all the knives she's seen, Taylor does, as she starts screaming and sobbing and thrashing.

"NO! N-No, please, I'll be good, p-please don't!"

But he does. Obie walks up to Taylor and simply stabs the knife through her bad shoulder before daintily patting her on the cheek. "There, now, that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Taylor just sobs quietly, not even noticing as Stane and the nightmare version of me disappear. The restraints are opened, but Taylor just limply collapses onto the floor and immediately loses what little she's eaten today.

Luckily, Bucky swoops in before she can collapse in her own vomit, easily scooping her up and cradling her like a baby. Clint rushes up to his side, literally snarling at the Beekeepers that try and take her away.

Bravo, Birdbrain.

We're all shuffled back to the cell in a rush, like we were misbehaving children that the Mandarin just wanted to get out of the public eye.

Well, I'll show him _misbehaving._

I steady Natasha as we're roughly shoved inside our humble little abode, and she takes Taylor from Bucky, laying her down on the bench in back and sitting down by her head, acting as sentry for the time being.

Something connects in my brain, watching my pale-as-a-sheet daughter twitch.

I look across the cell, finding five pairs of determined eyes, each attached to a determined and pissed off person.

We had two super soldiers, a rage machine, two geniuses, and two master assassins.

I think it was time to remind the Mandarin of that.


	9. Chapter 9

**Thanks to Anonymous (Guest), Esha Napoleon, Lucifer's711, Guest (Guest), and TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms for reviewing the last chapter.**

 **Warning for descriptions of blood and gore and possibly disturbing imagery, if you haven't seen that here already. Don't like, don't read.**

* * *

Taylor's POV

 _The sound of glass being crushed assaults my ears as the man walks closer, the scent of expensive scotch causing my stomach to roll._

" _You're worthless, ya are," a drunken voice slurs, close to my ear. "You'll never be worth anything...I never loved you...stupid...useless...whiny...everyone will leave you eventually…"_

 _A face to accompany the voice swims into view, followed by hands, hands that shove me down onto the glass-littered floor. I bite back a cry of pain as the glass cuts through my shirt and pierces my back._

" _Shut up," the man – with dark hair, hazel eyes and a one-of-a-kind goatee – orders, taking another gulp from the bottle in his hands. "I lost Rebecca because of you…"_

 _The man's face shifts into a different one, this one bald with a grey beard and a sly look on his face._

" _Listen to your father, brat. I will not have this company destroyed by filth like you...I've been here for fifty years…"_

 _Their voices begin to melt together, creating one endless string of insults._

" _Useless...worthless...filth...destroy...Rebecca...lost…"_

" _Taylor…"_

" _Brat...spoiled...whiny...stupid...never loved you...delusional…"_

" _Taylor."_

" _Teach you a lesson...never wanted a kid...stupid girl…"_

" _Taylor!"_

I'm ripped out of my nightmare by a sharp jolt and I lash out with an intensity that was part fear, part instinct, grabbing the nearest moving thing.

"Taylor, stop!"

The worried, urgent voice makes it through the fog, and I startle as I recognize the voice. "Natasha…?"

"Yes," she confirms. "Now, please let go of Bucky's arm."

I blink at the command, but it soon becomes apparent that the thing I'd grabbed earlier was Bucky's cyborg arm – I had his wrist clenched in my own prosthetic fist, and both of our arms were making odd creaking noises.

I quickly drop my arm, letting it fall to my side and sucking in a deep breath. The air smelled like sterilizing agent, not alcohol, and the only glass was that in the windows of the cell.

I was lying on my back, drenched in sweat and breathing fast as my heart pounded in my chest. It had felt so real...Stane, and a heavy-alcoholic version of my dad…

But...Stane was dead. He'd been dead for years. And dad hadn't gotten drunk in... a fair amount of time.

It wasn't real.

"No, it wasn't," Natasha soothes, and I realize that I'd said that last part out loud. "Are you with us?"

I nod, making myself focus on her face, framed by unkempt scarlet curls. "Do you think you can sit up, кукла?"

I nod again, and she threads an arm around my waist and helps me up so that I'm leaning against the back wall for support. Now I could see everyone, and everyone was watching me; Natasha was sitting next to me, one hand still on my back, Clint and Bucky were kneeling in front of me, to my right and left respectively, Steve and Thor were behind them, and Dad was-

Dad was triggering a slight panic attack. Wonderful.

I choose to focus on my boyfriend. "Hey."

"Hey yourself," he counters. "Listen, about yesterday, I'm sorry, love. I never meant that we weren't getting out, I was just…"

"Exhausted?" I suggest softly. "Yeah. I get it."

He grins and leans forward, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.

"Alright, lovebirds," Bucky interrupts, "Enough of that." He ignores the glares sent his way. "Listen for a second, okay?"

I nod and hop off the bench, joining the rest of my cellmates in a roughly circle shape on the floor, all of us focused on Bucky.

"So. Natasha, Tony-" I barely flinch, that's an accomplishment, "-and I were conversing last night, and we realized something: we aren't dead-"

"What an _astounding_ epiphany," I drawl.

"Shut up, отродье. As I was _saying_ , we aren't all dead by now, which means that somehow this Mandarin guy is providing with the necessary resources: food, water, breathable air, and shelter."

"Shelter is obvious, of course," Natasha continues. "They've kept us penned in a tiny room with constant light levels and no stimulation to speak of, out of each other."

"Food and water are also obvious," a soft voice adds, and I whirl around to face my dad - the real version, not my tormentor. Still, my breath catches and I take a step back, instantly feeling bad when his eyes flash with pain before he continues speaking.

"The Beekeepers come around twice in what we assume to be one day with the blandest food possible and one paper cup of water each, also not providing us with utensils, glass, or any other objects that could be adapted to use as weapons. Which sucks, but at least they aren't stupid."

"And speaking of weapons," Clint interjects, "the only people we've seen with weapons are the guards."

"Exactly," Bucky agrees. "Which is why the guards are going to help us get out."

Silence falls, and I look at my pseudo-brother oddly. "Um…Buck? Are you feeling alright?"

"Yes?" He nods slowly, looking confused at the question.

"Good, 'cause you _sound_ damn near insane."

"Hear me out," he pleads, and I nod once, rocking back on my heels as he continues. "Okay, so here's what we're going to do…"

.

Two hours later (I had been counting) a plan had been laid out, positions had been set, and it was time for lunch.

"I still think you're insane," I murmur from my seat on the bench, next to Clint. "Really insane if you think this is going to work."

"Well, it's the best we've got," Bucky hisses from across the cell. "Unless you have something better?"

Shaking my head, I fall silent, Clint squeezing my hand in reassurance.

The newfound silence allows everyone to hear the footsteps echoing outside the cell, and the tension level between the seven of us hits an all-time high as the door hisses open.

Eight Beekeepers file in, each with a tray that was proportioned perfectly to one of our diets. The guards were always the cocky ones; they didn't expect anything from worn out, mentally exhausted prisoners, after all. And I hated to admit that normally, they were right.

Normally.

Bucky stands first and moves in a blur of orange, kicking out the closest guard's knees and punching him one in the back of the head, just hard enough to knock him out.

The second guard goes from his weapon, but Natasha jumps him before he can do anything else.

The third and fourth guards get their heads knocked against a wall, courtesy of the "Science Bros", and crumple to the floor.

Steve quickly takes care of the fifth guard, and Thor the sixth, both men moving in a way that was scarily strong and efficient.

Clint and I move forward as one, approaching the seventh and eighth guards; Clint grabs Seven by the arm and throws him – the guard – over his shoulder, both hitting the ground with a thud; only Clint gets back up.

I round on Eight just as he pulls his massive gun, reaching out with my left hand to grab his wrist and squeeze, making him drop the weapon, while my right hand launches an uppercut into his nose, causing blood to spurt everywhere even as he crumples.

Not even a minute after the doors opened, there were now eight people standing and eight unconscious bodies on the floor.

We descend upon the guards like a horde of locusts, stripping them of first their mustard-yellow Beekeeper uniforms, which were quickly passed out and put on over our orange prisoner garb.

The guns are distributed to Bruce and Dad, the only two that couldn't fight with their hands, and the utility belts are emptied of anything we couldn't use.

I will admit the picture this scene painted was odd: to the casual observer, we were eight oddly-sized guards standing over eight half-naked bodies – all of them were male, when there were two female prisoners.

This plan was hinged on the hope that the Mandarin employed stupid people that wouldn't notice that fact until we were well and gone.

The next stage of the plan was to split into groups of two: Clint and I, Bucky and my father, Steve and Bruce, and Thor and Natasha. It was determined – by Bucky, who wasn't happy about being split from Steve – that this was the most equal distribution of power if all we had was hand-to-hand combat skills.

Steve and Bucky wrench the doors open and we all step into the hallway, careful and tense.

I don't know what I was expecting to find – maybe a cave? Spikes embedded in the walls dripping with poison? Experience should've really taught me better, because all that's there is a standard run-of-the-mill lab, the likes of which I'd seen thousands of times before.

We're barely out for two seconds before marching footsteps can be heard, and heading in our direction – someone must've tripped an alarm.

"We need to keep moving," Natasha urges. "It'd be easier to split up and then rendezvous somewhere."

"I don't think that's-"

"We don't have time to argue," I interrupt Steve. "If splitting up will do the job the fastest, then that's what we need to do. But we need to do it _now_ , because we're about to have company."

Natasha, Clint, Bucky, Thor, and my father all nod, and Steve sighs resignedly before agreeing. "I still don't like this," he mutters.

"Suck it up, buttercup," Dad fires back.

I just huff before taking off in the opposite direction of the incoming guards, Clint hot on my heels.

"You know," he comments mildly as we skid around a corner, "I just realized how little we actually get to fight together."

I nod in agreement, not breaking stride. "That's probably because – look out!"

He ducks the blast of light just in time, summersaulting forward to pop back up by my side.

The blast had come from one of the Beekeeper's Super Soaker-looking guns, meaning that they were, in fact, guns; _ray guns_ , no less.

Go figure. When had my life became an episode of Star Wars?

I charge forward, sliding in baseball-style to kick out the legs of the guard that had fired the shot; popping up to punch a second guard in the throat and collapse his trachea, grabbing his gun and turning to use it to put a dent in the skull of the first guard, who was just now stumbling to his feet.

I turn around to face Clint, who had the other two guards in a pile at his feet and deadly glint in his eyes as he stepped over the probably-dead bodies.

It was easy, sometimes, to forget that Clint Barton, outside of being a wonderful boyfriend and general jokester, was an _assassin_ , meaning that he'd killed people for a living, starting at the ripe old age of sixteen. He had weapons stashed literally _all over_ our shared floor in the Tower and he knew where the bodies (both metaphorical and literal) were buried.

Clint was just as dangerous as Natasha, if not more: Natasha was quite obviously dangerous. No one ever underestimated her.

"Beta?" I look up with a blink. Right, my assassin-boyfriend was speaking to me. "Yes?"

"You zoned out for a moment," he informs me, and I realize he's shifted to cover me, should another attack occur. "You alright?"

I nod. "Just got lost in thought for a minute. Let's keep moving."

Clint offers me an easy grin that instantly banishes all thoughts of arrows protruding from dead bodies to where they normally stayed: the back of my mind. "After you, milady."

"You pick the oddest times to be chivalrous," I comment as I pass him, the two of us setting a brisk pace down the hallway. "Come on, we need to find…somewhere."

Twenty dead guards and a while later, we did, in fact, find 'somewhere'. 'Somewhere' being a set of locked metal doors that could've led to the cafeteria, for all we knew. But still, it was worth a try.

If, that was, we could get them open.

"I – on your six!" I call in warning, just in time for Clint to duck another ray gun blast. This battalion of guards was about fifteen in number, but only four of them had guns – a fact which was not only was a huge liability for them, but a massive advantage on our part.

I have always loved the irony that comes with killing people with their own guns.

Clint and I charge the battalion, and I grab one guard straight off the bat, sweeping his legs out from under him and bouncing his head on the floor. I sweep out a leg, causing a second guard to go down before I grab his neck and snap it. The third guard gets shot with his own gun, followed by the fourth meeting a similar fate.

In a display of Bucky-like strength, I use my right hand to punch _through_ the fifth guard's chest, splattering blood everywhere as he soon finds himself down a few important organs. The sixth guard gets his head bashed in with the butt of his gun, and the seventh gets his throat stomped on. The eight conveniently slips on the blood on his comrades, going down in what was almost a comical fashion before he gets his neck broken as well.

Leaving me surrounded by two massive guns and eight dead bodies, my right arm covered in blood up to the elbow and a slightly unhinged look on my face.

"Do you ever get the feeling we enjoy this too much?" Clint, who was in a similar state, asks calmly, pulling his seven bodies over to mine.

"Only sometimes," I admit as I kneel by the four guns, cracking them open and getting to work.

A few minutes and a bit of creative hotwiring later, I'd created a Badass Ray-Gun Missile Launcher of Epic Proportions (capitalization necessary).

Why? Simply put, to blow shit up.

Specifically, those doors over there.

I pull the makeshift trigger of the device, watching in wonder as the bazooka-looking thing begins to hum and tremble.

Clint quickly dashes forward, grabbing me around the waist and dragging me back a few yards, getting clear just before an explosion rocks the corridor.

"I really hope that worked," Clint announces above the resulting chaos, "because we just threw inconspicuous out the window."

I just nod as I dart around the corner, skidding to a stop at the doors, which were down warped beyond all recognition.

Beyond those doors is a room that looks like every NASA Tech's wet dream – monitors covering one entire wall, computers buzzing, and Beekeepers running to and fro.

This was it – we'd found it.

This was the brain of the Mandarin.


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks to RussianAssassin, Anonymous (Guest), Esha Napoleon, TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms, and csilla (Guest) for reviewing the last chapter!**

 **This chapter concludes this story – be on the lookout for the sequel, called** _ **I'm Coming Home (To Breathe Again)**_ **, probably to be posted within the next few days.**

* * *

It's safe to say that all hell broke loose upon our entry into the control room.

It seemed to me like every guard in the facility was congregated in this single room – why did they _always_ gather in the control room/command center/headquarters? Why was that?

In any case, they did seem to congeal here, which only meant more bloodshed…for _them._

Hawkeye and I are a synchronized team, it turns out, both on and off the battlefield, and we go through the men and women serving the Mandarin with pragmatic efficiency.

(I got to garrote someone with a computer cord. 10/10. Would do again, if you piss me off.)

"A piece of cake," Clint pants once all the guards are dead. "I've faced worse. In worse condition."

"I don't doubt it," I retort, making my way over to the control console across the room – it's a HP computer with a flash drive plugged into the side, running an OS I'd never seen before.

That being said, my eighteen years of hacking experience allow me to worm my way into the main system pretty quickly.

"What are you doing?" my boyfriend asks curiously, watching the door from his perch on the workstation to my left.

"Poisoning the system," I reply absently, my eyes flitting quickly over the screen as my fingers fly. "The hell is this system? I don't even…"

Clint continues to watch my back, ignoring my semi-coherent angry mutterings. "So we aren't radioing the reserves in?"

I pause briefly to look at him. "Do you want to call them in, or do you want to burn this craphole to the ground and then dance on the ashes?"

Something flashes in his eyes – something dark, dangerous, jagged and raw. "It'd be my genuine pleasure. Care to explain what you're doing?"

"I'll skip the technical definition, but during my mini-warmonger days, I did design a few nasty viruses," I explain, turning back to the computer. "One of which I called The Bane, and it-"

I'm cut off as, with one final keystroke, every single computer screen in the room (and the surrounding area) flashes red and alarms start wailing.

"It does that," I finish lamely, having to shout to be heard. I reach around the computer console unplugging a flash drive and tucking it into the uniform's utility belt. "Come on!" I shout, taking point as we sprint from the room.

We make in down the hall and around a few corners without running into any guards, and for a split second I think I can breathe again, that it might actually be _easy_ from here on out.

And then the explosions start.

They're a bit like fireworks, and at first I think maybe someone else had hit a munitions closet somewhere.

I'm corrected by the snap-crackle-pop of computers exploding.

Clint hears it too, because he turns to me and shouts, "Was the virus _supposed_ to blow up the computers?!"

"No!" I scowl indignantly. "It must've overworked the cooling systems and overheated the system. These computers are absolute-" I'm cut off by a different crackling sound, this one the sound of a bonfire. "Wonderful! The fire is spreading! This is just _great!_ "

My boyfriend, vastly experienced in ignoring my ramblings (hysterical and otherwise), just pulls me into a side room, the hydraulic doors – were all the doors in this place automatic? – slamming closed behind us.

This room is quiet, save for my light panting and the dull explosions.

"Guys?"

I shriek, scrambling to my feet (and definitely _not_ clinging to Clint).

Natasha just smirks at me before sobering. "Are you okay?"

I take a moment to consider myself before replying.

I was covered in sweat (running from a major source of heat will do that to you) and there was blood splattered all over the bright yellow Beekeeper uniform. My metal arm was covered in blood – both drying and wet – up to the elbow, and I think I was in a slight state of shock. A quick glance at Clint showed him in a similar physical state, but with much less panic in his features and more bruising on his knuckles.

"Yeah," I nod, turning back to Natasha. "We're alright." I give her an inquiring look, noting her mussed hair, the blood under her nails, and the tears in her uniform. "Are you?"

She tilts her head, giving Thor, who was leaning against the wall to her left, a quick look before nodding. "As alright as we can be."

I nod in acknowledgement, turning to face a bickering Steve and Bruce, the latter of which trying to coerce the former into getting a stomach wound treated.

"Where would you like to treat that, doc?" I ask rhetorically, motioning to the room around us – it appeared to be a break room of sorts.

The not-a-medical-doctor just stares at me for a moment before taking his glasses off and rubbing the bridge of his nose. " _Please_ tell me that blood isn't yours."

"Nope," Clint interjects. "Mostly Beekeepers'." He gives me a proud grin; to which I roll my eyes but don't hesitate to return.

And speaking of proud grins, where were the two guys usually giving the to me?

"Are Bucky and Vader back yet?"

Natasha shakes her head at the nickname, but doesn't comment. "Not yet, young Skywalker. They," she motions between Steve and Bruce, "were the first here, followed by the two of us," now she points at herself and Thor. "I haven't seen either of them."

My response is cut off by the door flying open and two figures diving into the room, the door slamming on the sound of ray gun fire and angry curses.

" _Tony, vous idiot! Vous ne pouvez pas attaquer les gens comme ça!_ "

" _Eh bien, je suis désolé! Il fonctionne dans les films!_ "

"Hey!" I shout over the French exchange. "Shut it!"

Bucky and my father look up at me, thankfully silent. "Are you both in one piece?"

They both nod.

"Okay. Good. Now, if you're done acting like you're five and not ninety-five and fifty-one, respectively, can we get to work?"

" _You didn't have to point out the age,_ " they chorus, again in French, but shake themselves off anyways, standing up. Bucky wanders over to Steve, who immediately begins a full-body medical check.

I slowly begin wandering around the room, observing my surroundings.

The break room is sparsely furnished, just like everything else here, but it seems more comforting than anywhere else I'd seen thus far – there's the faint hum of the ceiling fan overhead, the light flickering every once in a while. There's various office supplies and papers scattered everywhere. There's a clock on the wall opposite the door, informing me that it was a quarter to midnight.

I still didn't know the date – or, for that matter, if I was currently twenty-one or twenty-two. If we got kidnapped in the middle of May, and it might've been a few weeks, which might mean-

"Taylor?" I blink at Steve, who had apparently been trying to get my attention. "Yeah, Cap?"

He waves a hand at a sheet of paper on the table in front of them, and I trot over to his side. "What's up?"

What was up was that someone had found a map of sorts, although it was more like a rough sketch of a large building, with notes like _more exits? Need better security – tell Jensen,_ and _Must reinforce walls_ scribbled in messy handwriting.

But it was better than nothing, and it was all that we had.

The most obvious rooms were the two big ones – one was near the middle of the building, like a castle's keep, and marked "Command Center". (Been there, wrecked that.) The second, much bigger, one was near one side of the building, and marked "Hangar".

"That's probably our best bet out," Steve had reasoned, tapping the room with a finger. "If we can find it."

Yeah, because _that_ was our next problem: we didn't know where we were. There were four rooms labeled "Break Room", each a fairly equal distance away from the command center.

"We just need to figure out which one it is," Bucky mutters, and Clint nods beside him, his keen eyes scanning the map as if it held the secrets of the universe.

Steve clears his throat, and we all turn to look at him, mainly on instinct.

It turns out the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan had just that – a plan. "Barton, Romanoff, go check out the area. Don't engage if you can help it. Be careful." The spy twins give him a dry look, and our leader quickly backpedals. "Sorry...be _discreet._ "

Natasha nods, and she and Clint slip out the door and into the hall, neither one making a sound. I stare at the door for a while after it closes - I trusted in their abilities, given that Natasha had been "in the business" since before I was born, and Clint had gotten unbeatable scores on every marksmanship test he'd ever taken; but this was new territory, and that was one of my closest friends and my boyfriend out there.

"-ta. Iron Beta!" I jump, turning around to face Steve, who was looking at me expectantly. "Did you not hear a word I just said?"

"Um...no," I say apologetically, before stiffening my spine. "Sorry. Can you repeat that?"

"I asked if your aim was still on point."

"When is it not?" I scoff.

"Sapporo," Bucky pipes up. "Remember? You couldn't have hit the side of a barn at point-blank range."

"I was seeing three of everything," I remind him, a slightly whine to my voice. "How was I supposed to know Kosei Nakamura would have specially designed drugs?"

"Maybe because he was a _drug lord,_ " Bucky retorts, sarcasm dripping from every word. "And you had a concussion."

I open my mouth to argue, but Steve beats me to it. "Iron Beta. Sergeant Barnes. _Focus._ Cut the chatter."

"Aye, aye Captain."

"Okay, Cap."

He nods sharply, in full Captain America mode as he gathered us around the table. "Okay. We're heading towards the hangar – it's our best way out. Beta, you, Hawkeye, and/or Widow will either be on guns or in the pilot's seat, depending."

I nod once. "Do we know what they might have up their sleeves?"

"I'm guessing a cross between Hydra-like tech and military planes," a familiar voice suggests behind me, and I do my best not to flinch as I turn my head.

 _Don't think about Stane, don't think about alcohol, you're going to be okay…_

"I mean, I don't know who the Mandarin is," Dad continued, slowly walking as he spoke. "Maybe he just likes oranges. Who knows? Point is, I've seen him, and he doesn't look like the type to settle for, say, Microsoft. Or, god forbid, _Apple._ " Our faces twist into identical expressions of horror and disgust, and for a split second I allow my lips to quirk up.

That's quickly squashed by the realization that my father has maneuvered himself so that he was across the table, managing to put Thor and Steve between the two of us.

 _But is that for protection of defense?_ a sardonic little voicein the back of my mind asks. _After all, the best defense is a good offense._

I curl my lip, causing Steve to pause and look at me in concern. "Are you okay?"

"We need to get out, ASAP," I mumble. "The voices in my head stopped making sense."

"Mine stopped making sense a long time ago," Natasha deadpans as she walks back in the room, Clint hot on her heels. "We have reasonable proof to believe that we're in break room two, Cap."

The Captain nods. "Good work, Agents."

"Not Agents," I mutter under my breath, but Steve either doesn't hear or ignores me completely (which isn't new) as he turns to back the map, tracing a finger along a path before he seems to decide on something, nodding and straightening up.

"Gear up," he orders as he folds the map up. "Grab what you need – we're on the move."

I nod and grab a tote bag in the corner, filling it with as much paperwork as possible and slinging it over my back, fashioning an odd quiver-slash-backpack.

"Are you ready?" Natasha asks, sidling up to me. "To go home, I mean."

"After this long?" I ask, partially rhetorically. "Well, let's just say I'm not exactly shedding any tears."

She nods, a small smirk teasing her lips. "But are you ready for after that?"

I pause. "After?"

"Life will go on," she reminds me bluntly. "Do you think you're ready for that?"

"Are you?" I retort. "I don't think anyone is, Tash. But for right now, getting out is our top priority."

"I agree," she hums, nodding again. She places a hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. "Make sure you make it out, _suzume._ "

"I will, _kumo_ ," I promise her, just before Cap calls for us to huddle 'round.

"We're moving together this time," he explains. "Iron Man, Banner, keep to the center of the 'pack'. No offense, but you can't exactly fight without the suit or Hulk."

"No offense taken," Bruce says, giving Cap a small smile. He seems peacefully resigned to the fact that he's only useful for a) the Hulk, b) his brain, or c) his medical skills (because we superheroes are an "accident" prone bunch).

Dad, on the other hand, looks a bit more indignant, but he nods anyways.

"Black Widow, Hawkeye, you lead us to the hangar and watch ahead," Steve continues. "Beta, Thor, and Winter watch our flanks. I'll be watch our backs. Understood?"

Confirmations are echoed around the room, and, with a nod, Captain America leads our little troop out of the room and back into the network of hallways.

It doesn't take long for us to run into opposition, in the form of about sixteen to eighteen Beekeepers.

They meet their ends quickly and efficiently, and I discover that Thor fights with a grace, fluidity, and swiftness that, ironically, reminds me of lightning.

The two of us make a decent team, especially when the god uses his size and strength to his advantage, aiming for heads and chests while I go in low, aiming for knees and legs and all the squishy bits below one's ribcage.

"Are you alright?" he asks once we're both covered in gore and there are bodies littering the ground. At my nod, he grins largely. "'Twas a wonderful battle, Lady of Iron, and I thank you for it."

"No problem, big guy," I drawl. "It was a pleasure."

He gives me another smile as we continue down the hallway, cutting down anyone who was stupid enough to get in our way, and even those who never did.

This was, essentially, a gigantic middle finger to the Mandarin, in the form of death and bloodshed and maybe a little fire.

And speaking of fire, there was no sign of our earlier bonfire – my guess was they at least had a sprinkler system installed, judging by the smell of rain in the air.

Cap stops us at another pair of doors. "This is it," he announces. "The hangar."

"Are you sure?" Bucky asks, his eyes narrowed at the door.

"I'm sure," Steve assures us with a nod. "Come on, let's get this open."

The door doesn't last long under the brute strength of two super soldiers and a god, and we soon creep into a very large and very quiet cavern. It was also noticeably empty, and that put every single one of us on edge.

"Look," Natasha nods past my shoulder.

I turn on my heel, my eyes widening as I take in the multiple aircraft behind me. Dad was right – they looked like a cross between a Quinjet, a fighter jet, and a gunnery helicopter. They had narrow, two-person cockpits, the seats situated in a single file line, like they were in a fighter jets. The planes themselves had narrow cabins, with an open panel on each side, presumably for guns.

"I'm flying!" I declare, dashing for the nearest jet and pulling myself up so that I was standing on a wing.

"Hold on, Iron Beta," Cap warns. "We aren't going anywhere until we get those doors open," he says, pointing to the northern side of the room, where the floor sloped upwards to a pair of massive doors – probably the only thing between us and freedom.

I push down on the heat rising in my cheeks, half-heartedly glaring at Clint as he smirked at me from the ground.

"Sorry, Cap," I call down from my perch atop the wing. "So how do we-"

"There's a keypad over here," my dad calls, over by the door through which we had entered. I look over and squint at the small device, topped with a blinking red light.

"Do we happen to know the code?" I ask, not expecting to get a good answer – I highly doubted that even the stupidest of guards would just leave the access codes to the hangar door on a sticky note somewhere.

If they did…then we fully deserved to take those codes, fly our way out, and blow everything to hell as we did so.

But, alas, it wasn't that easy; it was never that easy. We had no clue what the code was, and we needed to know soon.

So Dad set to hacking that keypad, with me on standby – not that I would be needed, because keypads were usually child's play – and sure enough, the little light soon blinks green, and a deep rumbling fills the hangar as the bay doors unlock and slowly open, sunlight flooding the room and causing us all to flinch.

The first sunlight we'd seen in a long time, and it hurt.

"We need to move quickly," Steve orders. "Beta, get in that cockpit. Hawkeye, Winter, man the guns. Wheels up ASAP!"

I scramble up the wing and onto the main fuselage of the plane, finding the latch for the cockpit cover and, together with Natasha, pull it open. I quickly slide into the front seat, the pilot's seat, while Natasha, who was apparently my co-pilot, sits behind me.

I close the hatch above me and take a deep breath at the sight of the unfamiliar controls, squashing down my immediate feeling of panic and first grabbing the headset. "Check, one two three."

" _This is Romanoff, I copy."_

" _Rogers, I copy."_

" _This is Barnes, copy."_

" _Hawkeye, I copy. Thor does too, but he doesn't have a headset."_

" _Banner here. I copy."_

" _Iron Man. I copy."_

"Alrighty then," I breathe, buckling myself into the harness. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to thank you for flying Air Stark. My name is Taylor, and I will be your captain today. Is everyone in position?"

" _We are, Beta,"_ Steve assures me.

" _All systems are a go,"_ Natasha echoes.

I nod, even though they can't see me, and flick a few switches on the console in front of me, causing the engines to roar to life. "Is now a good time to admit I barely know what I'm doing?!" I shout over the noise.

" _No!"_

" _Bring us up and around!"_ Clint instructs. _"Full rotation!"_

"Yes sir," I nod, grabbing the control yoke and pulling up, letting out a shaky breath as the jet lifts. I rotate the jet clockwise, spinning on a pivot and listening to the _rat-tat-tat_ of gunfire accompanied by explosions from around the hangar – Winter and Hawkeye were aiming for the gas tanks, I realized as I finish the circle. "Alright, boys?"

" _A-Okay, Beta,_ " Bucky radios back.

I nod before gunning the throttle, roaring out of the hangar and onto what looked like a military compound – compete with big guns that were shooting at us.

"Nat, what's our weapons status?" I ask, peering out the window as I maneuver us through the gunfire.

" _I've got control of the nose guns. Not sure what caliber."_

"Doesn't matter," I grin widely. "Point and spray, Widow, point and spray."

She agrees, and I can hear a spray of gunfire coming from in front of me as I watch guards on the ground fall, one after another.

A litany of cursing comes through the headset, followed by Clint's urgent voice. _"Beta, we've got company coming in at four o'clock!"_

"Roger that. Hold on." I suck in a deep breath. This was just like the suit, I'd pulled maneuvers in the suit for years now, I had this…

I yank the control stick hard to the left, the plane mimicking my movement with a steep roll to my left as there's an explosion where we had been only moments before. I straighten the plane out and force the nose down, dropping our altitude under we just _barely_ brushed over the rooftops of the compound before pulling into a fifty-degree vertical rise.

" _Holy mother of god,"_ Bucky moans (or whimpers) after I right the plane again. _"That – you_ _ **suck.**_ _You know that, придурок?"_

"I told you to hold on," I defend, moving into a gentler serpentine pattern. "Besides, that was nothing. I do worse in the suit."

" _Yeah, well, not everyone has stomachs of steel,"_ Natasha reminds me. _"We must've pulled 4 Gs in that turn."_

"Well," I hum, watching a blip on the radar come closer, "you might want to hold on, because it's going to get worse."

I gun the throttle and pull back on the yoke, sending us backwards and lifting the nose so that the almost went nose-over-tail before twisting us left, performing a barrel roll that has a few screams coming over the radio.

I had a feeling this would be the last time I was allowed in the pilot's seat.

"Prepare to fire, Nat," I request, doing a 180 so that we were facing the other plane. It gets pummeled by bullets – first just from the nose gun, then – once Clint and Bucky caught on – the artillery guns.

I let out a whoop as the plane goes down, steering us away from the resulting fire and explosion. "Hell yeah! Take that, you jackwads!"

" _That's gonna attract attention,"_ Steve points out. _"We need to mobilize. Do we have missiles?"_

" _No,"_ Clint replies, before I can say anything. _"But they do. Munitions, nine o'clock. Shoot it up…"_

"…and it goes 'boom'." I finish, turning the plane around. "On it."

I point the noise of the jet at the pallets of missiles – seriously, who left _missiles_ on wooden _pallets_? – and literally swoop in all guns blazing, maneuvering the plane so that we hit all the weak spots that most missiles had.

I bank left, tossing the plane sideways and turning on a dime and soaring away just as the munitions go up in a giant ball of fire, which quickly latches on to everything else that was remotely flammable within a ten-foot radius.

I push on the throttle, ramping up the speed as I watch the outer limits of the Mandarin's compound fly by below.

And then it hits me: we were out.

We made it out.

"We did it," I say breathlessly. "Oh my god."

" _Woohoo,"_ Clint cheers. _"Avengers: 1, Mandarin: 0."_

"But technically they did get a few on us," I muse. "If you count everything in between then and now."

" _Point."_

* * *

Between the two of us, it doesn't take Natasha and I that long to figure out the autopilot on our getaway vehicle, and soon enough we had a course set for Park Avenue, in Manhattan, in New York (which, as it turns out, wasn't that far away, meaning we'd been on US soil the entire time).

As I lay back in my chair, watching the sky and clouds zoom by outside, I can still feel the dull throb of terror that had existed for my entire stint as a prisoner of the Mandarin.

It's not a foreign feeling. It can't be.

But this was a new breed of terror, one born not out of explosions and aliens but of the people around you being peeled open and stripped to their very core, exposed for all to see.

And suddenly, Natasha's earlier words come to mind:

" _Life will go on. Are you ready for that?"_

Was I?

I didn't know.

But now, there was only one way to find out, now wasn't there?


End file.
